Most Wanted (16 page)

“I know. I'm better off prepared.”

They both looked up at the sound of a soft knock at the door, and Dr. Frazier entered. An African-American woman in her late fifties, she had a steely halo of gray hair that made a neat frame to her round face. Her dark eyes were soft behind rimless glasses, and she smiled sweetly.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, ladies. It's all about emergencies today. I have somebody in labor at the hospital, so you're my last appointment of the day.” Dr. Frazier squirted some sanitizer on her hands, then slid on purple latex gloves. “We don't have to guess about your conception date. I checked your file, and your procedure was April 16, correct?”

“Yes.” Christine knew Dr. Frazier meant the IUI procedure, by which she was inseminated with Donor 3319's sperm. Dr. Frazier knew that Christine had conceived using a donor, but nothing about the latest developments and the lawsuit. Christine briefly considered telling her, but decided against it. She wanted to keep this experience pure and untainted.

“So this is your first ultrasound, correct?”

“Yes.” Christine nodded. “Do I hear the heartbeat today?”

“That's the plan,” Dr. Frazier answered, and Christine heard the caveat in her voice, in that not every ultrasound would confirm a heartbeat. She'd learned to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

“Good.”

“Okay, let's get started.” Dr. Frazier sat on a rolling stool and rolled into position. “You'll feel some pressure, but that's it. Keep your eyes on the monitor. That's the show.”

“Okay.” Christine turned to the boxy monitor on top of the ultrasound machine. Though the screen was black, she felt her heartbeat quicken. She'd seen this scene in movies and read about it in her books. She'd always wondered if she would ever be the pregnant lady on the examining table and now finally, she was. She hated that Marcus wasn't here, but Lauren was, and girlfriends were forever.

“Ultrasound, as you may know, uses sound waves to show us an image of the baby.” Dr. Frazier spoke as the monitor screen blossomed into a grayish mess of static, and Christine felt some discomfort but was distracted by the image. She couldn't tell what she was seeing though she felt vaguely nervous and thrilled, both at once.

“Is that the baby?”

“Not yet, stay tuned,” Dr. Frazier answered, then the image changed and shifted, gray and black, but still all static.

“It doesn't hurt the baby to do this, does it?” Christine couldn't tear her eyes from the monitor, watching the dark and light patches come in and out of view.

“No, this is perfectly safe.” Dr. Frazier started pressing buttons on the keyboard of the machine. The image enlarged once, then twice, and Christine felt tears come to her eyes, her heart recognizing the image before her brain did.

“That's a heartbeat!” Christine cried out, joyful. “Isn't that the heartbeat? That thing, like, fluttering?”

“Yes.” Dr. Frazier pressed more buttons. “So we can confirm this pregnancy, for sure.”

“Oh my God!” Christine yelped. “Look at that! That's amazing! Lauren, look!”

“I know!” Lauren squeezed her hand. “Honey, you got yourself a baby.”

“I do!” Christine's eyes brimmed. “I really do!”

“Let me explain what you're seeing.” Dr. Frazier nodded toward the monitor. “See the circle, and the outer edges of the circle are grainy and gray? That's the lining of your uterus.”

“Okay.” Christine wiped her eyes, trying to focus through her emotions.

“Inside of the grainy edges, it's black, which is fluid, and in the middle of the fluid is the white spot, which is the baby. See how it looks like a figure eight? Or one circle attached to the other?”

Christine nodded, too overcome to speak.

“That's because, at this point, the head and body are about the same size. Sometimes you can see arm stems, but that's hard to see right now. And, as you said, the fluttering is the heart.”

“Wow.” Christine wiped her eyes again.

“Everything looks copacetic. You're nine weeks along.” Dr. Frazier returned to the ultrasound machine and pressed more buttons. “I'm going to take some measurements, and we will be done in a few minutes.”

“Thanks.” Christine sniffled at the screen, riveted by the delicate white fluttering, like the most gorgeous of butterflies beating its wings, delicate but terribly fragile. She felt overwhelmed with a fierce protectiveness, as well as the greatest happiness she had ever known, suffusing her with the warmth, strength, and power of life itself.

“Hold on, for the finale.” Dr. Frazier hit a button on the machine, which made a few ticks and in the next moment, printed a photo, which she handed over. “Baby's first picture.”

“This is amazing!” Christine brimmed with new tears as she accepted the photo, her fingers shaking. Holding the photo was almost like holding the baby in her hands, proof of a dream realized, before her eyes. She made a silent vow to love the baby, to take care of it, and to shield it from any and all harm. Because it wasn't Rosemary's Baby, it was
her
baby, and she was its mother.

In time, the ultrasound ended, and Christine dried her eyes, came out of her reverie, and got dressed. She and Lauren waited together at the billing desk while she paid her co-pay, then they walked to the car. They were talking the way they always did, bantering back and forth, exchanging views about the ultrasound, but Christine felt as if she were also in a world of her own, a world that now included only her and her child, inside her. She had never felt that way in her life, and it struck her, as she piled into Lauren's Jetta and they drove off, past the pretty houses and tall trees toward the Clam Cottage, that she had never realized how incredible it was to be pregnant, that it truly was a miracle, and that this miracle had happened to her.

The sensation stayed with her like a state of grace, even as she climbed out of the car, went inside the restaurant, sat down, and ordered. All of the emotion she was experiencing resonated deep within her, as if being her baby's mother was the best thing she could be doing in the world, as if her heart had gotten what it had always wanted, even before she had even been born and filled out her body, to give her soul a home.

“Christine? Pass the ketchup, please.” Lauren frowned from across the narrow Formica table, tilting her head. “Earth to Christine. I've asked you for the ketchup, like, three times.”

“Sorry.” Christine smiled, shaking it off.

“What's up with you?”

“I don't know.” Christine shrugged, nonplussed but happy. “I didn't realize my ultrasound would be a spiritual experience.”

Lauren burst into laughter. “OMG, you are so freaking hormonal.”

“Thank you for coming with me.” Christine almost choked up again but blinked her tears away.

“I'm happy I was there.” Lauren took a big bite of her lobster roll, which was hot and dripping with butter, making her hands greasy.

“Are you so happy you got your lobster roll?”

“I'm unbelievably happy I got my lobster roll.”

“I'm unbelievably happy I got my onion rings,” Christine said, taking a bite. The batter was light, and the onions had been sliced thin, so it was like heaven on earth. “These are so good it's not even funny.”

“We're eating for two.”

“And nobody can stop us.”

The Clam Cottage was a more humble establishment than its name would suggest, one large room with ten Formica tables around the windows on the perimeter. The cashier, take-out counter, and kitchen were situated on the right side of the room, where the menu was posted on a fading chalkboard that nobody needed because only locals ate here. A flat-screen TV played a soap opera on mute, and retirees watched, though it didn't have any closed captioning. Christine was relieved that it wasn't on a news station though Jeffcoat lurked behind her thoughts, darkening her happiness like a shadow.

“I feel so free.” Lauren munched away on her lobster roll. “My mother-in-law picked up the kids at the bus. Let's go buy things for the baby.”

“Good idea.” Christine got distracted by the soap opera, where a gorgeous young couple were in bed. “Where do they get those people? They look unreal.”

“They're all models.” Lauren turned to the TV, and the scene changed to a lawyer in his office, lined with fake books. “That's Dan, the assistant D.A.”

“How do you know?” Christine asked, surpised. “Do you watch this?”

“Of course. Not.” Lauren laughed.

“When do you get time to watch soap operas?”

“I DVR them and watch when the kids do their homework.” Lauren pointed at the screen. “See Dan? He lost his big case, so the killer's going free.”

“Oh,” Christine said, but her thoughts turned to Jeffcoat.

“Dan is also sleeping with the killer's twin sister, which he can't figure out even though they look alike.”

Christine kept her eyes on the screen, thinking about Zachary Jeffcoat, in prison outside Philadelphia.

“They're even played by actors who are fraternal twins. You know how fraternal twins can sometimes look alike, even though they're not identical?”

“Yes, sure.” Christine couldn't focus on the show. The idea that had been forming in the back of her mind was finally coming together, especially after what Gary had told her. “It's going to be really hard to wait two months to find out if Jeffcoat's our donor.”

“The wheels of justice turn slowly.”

“And in the meantime, we don't have an answer to a simple question.”

“I know, it totally sucks.”

“Maybe there's another way.”

“What?”

Christine took a flyer. “We're trying to find out if Jeffcoat is Donor 3319, so what's the easiest way? What do we tell our students, every day?”

“Stop picking your nose?”

“No. We tell them, ‘If you don't know something, ask.'”

“Ask who?” Lauren frowned. “Davidow doesn't know, and Homestead won't tell you.”

“There's one person who knows. Zachary Jeffcoat.”

“What are you saying?” Lauren's eyes flared in surprise.

“I'm saying that Jeffcoat knows whether he donated or not. He'll even know what his donor number is. If I want to know if Jeffcoat is Donor 3319, I should ask him.”

“How?”

“Just, go. Drive down. He's in Philadelphia, not on Mars.”

“Are you
insane
?” Lauren's eyes widened, horrified. “He's in prison.”

“So? People in prison have visitors. I wouldn't have to wait two months. I wouldn't have to sue Homestead. I can just ask Jeffcoat.”

“Are you seriously considering this?”

“Yes, why not?” Christine felt her heart lift.

“He's a
serial killer
. He's a
dangerous man
.”

“They have him behind bars. The safest place you can meet a serial killer is in prison. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. I can just go ask him.”

“Would you tell him who you are?”

“I don't know, I'll figure it out.” Christine thought a moment, remembering her conversation with William Magni, from the newspaper. “Who do prisoners talk to, besides their family and friends? Reporters. I could say I was a reporter.”

“No, no, no. It's really crazy. What if you ask him and he doesn't tell you?”

“Then I go.” Christine shrugged. “I haven't lost anything. Philadelphia's not that long a drive. I could leave in the morning and be there by the afternoon. Tomorrow.”

“No!” Lauren said, hushed. “You can't, you shouldn't. It's scary.”

“I don't see the harm. I can drive away. He can't get out. He doesn't know where I live.”

“Marcus will
never
let you do that.”

“Marcus doesn't have to know. He's away this weekend.”

“You would go to a prison without telling him?”

“He went to a lawyer without telling me.” Christine shrugged. The more she thought about the idea, the less crazy it seemed.

“But you're
pregnant
.”

“By
whom
?” Christine leaned over the table, newly urgent. “I just saw my baby's heartbeat and I want to know who his father is. I want to know if it's Zachary Jeffcoat and I want to know if I can save my marriage. Why can't I investigate like that other couple did, the one Gary told us about?”

“But going to a
prison
? You're a
teacher
.”

“Then think of it as a field trip. With really bad clothes.”

Lauren didn't laugh. Her mouth made a tight little line, turning down so comically she looked like a sad-face emoticon. “You can't go alone.”

“Yes I can.”

“No you can't.”

“Then don't make me,” Christine said, with a wink.

 

Chapter Fifteen

“Mom, I'm home,” Christine sang out, as soon as she entered the living room, because her parents would be in the kitchen and wouldn't hear her come in. They still left their front door unlocked, which drove her crazy. They still lived in Middletown where she grew up, and though it was safe, she felt lately that they were so vulnerable, protected only by an aging Chihuahua, Ralph Mouth. Christine found herself worrying about them, though her anxiety probably had something to do with her father's Alzheimer's. Everything seemed so precarious lately, so fragile. She closed the door and twisted the deadbolt, locking out all harm.

“In the kitchen!” her mother called out, unnecessarily since it was the only room in the house they ever used, from as far back as Christine could remember, just the three of them huddled around a Formica table in the sunny kitchen she always thought was cozy. She didn't realize that it was cramped, or indeed how
small
the house was—a white clapboard with two bedrooms, a “sewing” room, and one bath on the second floor—until middle school, when she visited her friends' houses. They had living rooms
and
family rooms, as well as a kitchen, but Christine didn't see the point because in the Murray house, the kitchen
was
the family room and the living room.